Making all the arrangements for a funeral is not an easy job as one can well imagine. Funerals are solemn affairs and are emotionally charged. If you are new to the business of funeral planning it will be tough going, especially when you try to keep your emotions out of it, as we experienced ourselves when faced with the possibility of having to arrange for one. It was difficult for us to go to the funeral home and attend to all the details in a business like fashion.
The funeral home director was very nice, personable and practical. I did not have any clue about cost or even what choices would need to be made. The most obvious choice is the casket which range from $1,100 at this particular home to tens of thousands. A “middle” range casket that suited our choice was in the $2,000 range. It was a strange feeling looking at a “casket catalog” but better to look when you don’t have to than have to shop in a distraught state of mind.
After selecting a casket, we selected a vault too. A vault safeguards the casket from any natural settling or sinking in of the grave area. I was not aware that a vault had to be chosen, and though it is not actually required, we went ahead and bought it, in any case.
We decided on a vault that cost about $3,000. This was in the middle range of the prices quoted at the funeral home. The entire business of making these difficult choices was very tiring. Fortunately, there were not many more details to be taken care of.
Next was the specifics of a funeral that we chose to wait until later to complete. We were mostly concerned with how much this affair would cost and we stuck to the “merchandise” to choose from. There were packages of items such as guest books, prayer cards, and many other things to add to the funeral experience for memorializing the loved one. There were all sorts of designs from the feminine to the simple, the nature scenes to more contemporary designs. The one we chose had sheaves of wheat and was simple yet personal as my husband used to grow wheat and it was a comforting image for him.
For all other details of the funeral that will have to be seen to later, we were provided with a very useful booklet covering every aspect of the funeral. With this information on hand it was possible for us to make inquiries at other funeral homes for comparison. We needed to do this because we hear stories about scams in this business and how funeral homes may overcharge for their services. Since the director of the funeral home we went to gave us the booklet to take home, and neither asked for any payment in advance nor pressurize us in any way, I thought he was being fair and honest.
There were financial details that the funeral home director assured us that they would take care of for no additional charge such as life insurance. All we would need to do is give the funeral home the names and numbers of our life insurance policies anytime that was convenient for us, and they would do the calling and the details to get payment so that these details would not be a worry at a time of sorrow or shock. This was something that I did not know they would do.
Personally, I found that planning the funeral without waiting till the very end, when we know that a loss of a loved one is imminent, is lot less stressful. For anyone who had been through a funeral, being in a funeral home will naturally bring sad and painful memories. However, making arrangements for a funeral before it is actually needed could be a calming and healing experience. It gives one a chance to think how inevitable death is and how we should be prepared to face it. Life and death are so closely linked that we need to ponder over both.